Intact but vulnerable: Affective working memory in social anxiety disorder

TL;DR

This paper reviews how emotional working memory issues in social anxiety disorder affect cognitive control and suggest new ways to assess and treat the condition.

Contribution

The paper introduces affective working memory as a key mechanism linking cognition and emotion in social anxiety disorder.

Findings

Working memory is impaired in social anxiety disorder when dealing with socially threatening content.

Affective working memory deficits include reduced flexibility and sustained attention to threats.

Interventions targeting emotional regulation through working memory could improve treatment.

Abstract

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is increasingly recognized as a disorder of cognitive-affective dysregulation, with growing evidence implicating affective working memory (AWM) as a core mechanism. This narrative review synthesizes findings from behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies to examine how socially and emotionally salient stimuli interfere with working memory (WM) processes in individuals with SAD. While general WM capacity often appears intact in neutral contexts, impairments emerge consistently when tasks involve socially threatening content or require executive control under cognitive load. Key disruptions include reduced flexibility, impaired updating, and sustained attentional capture by threat. These deficits are further moderated by individual symptom dimensions and task demands. The review critically evaluates current theoretical models and highlights methodological limitations in the field, proposing directions for future research. Clinical implications include the use of AWM-sensitive assessments and interventions that target executive regulation of emotion. AWM thus provides a mechanistic bridge linking cognition, emotion, and social dysfunction in SAD.

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